We need to talk about progressives’ misogyny.

It’s time to have that conversation, especially now that it’s manifesting in attacks on Florida’s First Lady Casey DeSantis. 

Casey DeSantis is an incredibly effective spokeswoman and co-pilot for her husband Ron DeSantis’ governorship in Florida, and now his run for the GOP nomination.

She just launched her initiative Mamas for DeSantis, highlighting the governor’s defense of children during the COVID lockdowns and on issues related to kids’ innocence and gender ideology. 

A former television anchor and a mother of three young children, she’s the most powerful campaign surrogate he could possibly have conjured.

The DeSantis’ opponents know it and see Casey as a real danger.

This is why she’s coming under fire, and why misogyny is being used as a weapon against her.

Over the weekend MSNBC analyst David Jolly used what is becoming the left’s most preferred way to strike at a woman, or a mother, calling her a “Karen.”

“Casey DeSantis is a fairly compelling political figure in Florida, and now nationally,” he said. “For many, she’s the brighter side to Florida’s angry governor. For others, she’s become America’s Karen.”

That is, she’s just a woman, just a mom — a nobody.

She is complaining for the sake of complaining, using her white privilege to get her way.

That’s how the term “Karen” is being used. 

Parental rights

This framing asserts that mothers have nothing of importance to complain about, that any concerns they have about their children’s future or education are imagined.

Mothers cannot possibly occupy a seat at the table of experts, their insistence on having a say in their child’s medical or educational futures is hubris. 

When it comes to national politics, these misogynists are telling her: Sorry, Casey, there are real issues in this country, and your kids aren’t a priority.

Let the experts handle this election — go back to baking cupcakes for the PTA fundraiser.

Here’s the problem for these progressives: America’s moms know our kids aren’t their priority.

Everything about how the last three years went down makes that fact crystal clear.

From school closures to masking toddlers, we know that the expertise of these so-called experts isn’t unassailable and that when push comes to shove, the only people looking out for children are their own mothers and fathers. 

When they tell Casey DeSantis to sit down and be quiet, that her message doesn’t matter, they are telling us, America’s mothers (and fathers), that we don’t matter, that our kids don’t matter. 

In one sense, a Karen isn’t a woman who feels entitled merely to complain, but to complain and have her complaints acted on.

She’s the woman who, in a restaurant, gets a cold plate and doesn’t just tell the waiter the meal is unsatisfactory but expects the problem to be fixed. We could all stand to do a little bit more “Karen-ing.”

America’s mothers need to stop just being told what to think and how to raise our own kids. 

‘She’s our role model’

Example? They tell us we don’t know anything about education, that we need to trust the experts. That you don’t get a say in the books that are read to our children, or the curriculum they use. 

Tell them to get lost. Our kids come first.

During the pandemic, they expected parents to play Zoom butlers when schools were closed; now that kids are back in class, they want you to go back to not caring about what happens there. 

They’d like you not to notice that the majority of America’s children can’t read or do math, schools are being overrun by violence, parts of the American education system are irrevocably broken.

They don’t want you to complain, they’d like you to just take that cold bowl of pasta and say thank you.

If Casey DeSantis is a Karen, she’s our Karen.

And she’s our role model for Karen-ing. 

Bethany Mandel is co-author of the new book “Stolen Youth.”